Joseph Garber, "father figure" of all Black Berliners, and his family
In 1929 and 1930, a handful of articles circulated in the German press that drew readers' attention to the existence of a small group of Black residents in Berlin; their size was estimated to be anywhere from two dozen to several hundred people. [1] Readers were informed that this group consisted largely of men from the former German colonies in Cameroon and Togo, as well as Black men and women from other parts of Africa, the United States, and the Caribbean. Taken together, the articles provided evidence of a socially and politically networked migrant community. Black social spaces, such as a regulars' table in a bar in the city center, had emerged, as had Black political organizations. Reference was also made to the founding of an anti-colonial, anti-racist group of the League for the Defense of the N*** Race in Berlin in September 1929.[2] The articles also provided insights into personal stories and the everyday lives of various Black people. One example is the Togolese Joseph Garber, who was known among all Black Berliners as a "father figure"; a status that was granted to him because he had lived in the city for a long time and often recounted his memories of pre-war life in Berlin. [3]
Joseph had been at home in Berlin since 1896. Like most of the Black people who lived in Germany in the interwar period, he had arrived before World War I, at a time when several thousand Black people had been drawn to what is now Germany by European imperialism and globalization. [4] Dozens of African sailors reached the ports of Bremen and Hamburg, while hundreds of personal servants accompanied colonial officials, missionaries, or private individuals on home leave. Hundreds of African men and women also participated in ethnological exhibitions. Some Africans were trained as missionaries or soldiers, and a handful taught as language teachers at the Hamburg Colonial Institute or the Berlin Seminar for Oriental Languages. In addition, over 100 young people came to Germany for educational purposes.
The German colonial authorities in Berlin and Africa initially supported temporary immigration, especially from the colonies, if it was deemed conducive to the goals of German imperialism and the colonial economy. At no time was it intended that Africans should be permanently resident in the German Reich. As early as the 1890s, restrictions were introduced to control and limit migration movements from the colonies. Most Black people probably had no intention of staying long-term, and the majority returned to their home countries before the outbreak of World War I. Nevertheless, several hundred young men, like Joseph, made today's Germany their home, by choice or for other reasons. Some stayed because they were too impoverished to return home, or because they were stranded in Germany after the outbreak of the war. They started families and found work there, creating a Black community. Using the example of Joseph's life story and that of his children, this article examines the ways in which German colonialism and its legacy influenced the ability of Black women and men to build a life for themselves in Germany before 1945.
From Aného, Togo to Berlin, Germany – transnational networks
Amemenion, later known as Joseph Garber, was born on September 12, 1879 into an extended family of the Aného elite in what is now Togo; his parents were the influential city dignitary Robert Garber (Mensah Robert James Garber) and his wife Anna. As a boy, he must have witnessed the violent attack by German troops on the Togolese coastal city in February 1884, whose alleged goal was to protect German trade interests. [5] The attack ended with one dead and with two Togolese men Joseph must have known – Robert Gomez and Albert Wilson – being taken hostage to Berlin for a time. In December 1885, the city was officially incorporated into the German colony of Togo.
Like many wealthy Togolese contemporaries along the West African coast, it was important to Robert Garber that his children – and especially his sons – go through a European education. They saw it as a means of gaining prestige and political influence. Joseph, like several relatives, probably received an education from the English Wesleyan Missionary Society, which had been active in Aného for a long time. Due to the influence of the mission, the English language was widely spoken in the region, so Joseph grew up multilingual. The new formalized colonial connections to Germany were an opportunity for the African dignitaries to send their children to Germany for further education or an apprenticeship. Before 1914, well over 100 African boys and a dozen girls from the German colonies, mainly from Cameroon and Togo, came to German cities for exactly this purpose. [6] Among them was Joseph.
In December 1890, he arrived in Hamburg together with two family members, Karl and Eduard Garber, as well as with Edmund Wilson and Dovi Amussu Lawson, both also from influential Aného families.[7] The young men arrived under the care of the German scientist Emil Kräusel, who had traveled through West Africa and also parts of the new German Empire. Joseph and his contemporaries stayed in the small village of Buderose (Budoradz) in East Prussia, among other places, where they were taught by Kräusel in his castle. Kräusel also took them to Cologne, where they were to serve as an attraction during the city's exhibition of geography and ethnology. [8] The exhibition included objects, goods, and photographs, most of which had been taken from the German colonies, including some from Kräusel's own collection, and served to advance the German colonial project. The boys' stay seems to have been cut short for unknown reasons; the Garbers and Wilson returned to Togo in December 1891.
This European experience opened up new opportunities for Karl Garber, and in 1893 he secured a position as the second African official in the German administration in Togo. [9] Dovi stayed in Buderose to complete an apprenticeship in forestry, and was baptized there in 1893 with the name Herbert. When, contrary to expectations, he did not return to Aného after three years and his worried parents had received no news of his whereabouts, they brought the matter to the influential King Lawson of Aného. [10] The latter, in turn, demanded an explanation from the Imperial Commissioner for Togo. The latter had to open an investigation. This was by no means the only case of an African youth who had "disappeared" under the care of a German colonist or had been expelled in Germany. Such incidents potentially had an impact on local politics in the colony, and the German authorities were forced to introduce measures to prevent this. [11] Dovi seems to have finally returned to Aného in late 1895. [12]
With his father's permission, Joseph's half-brother Salomon had already come to Berlin a few years before Joseph in the fall of 1888, accompanied by two other Togolese youths, one of whom was probably another brother, Samuel. The young men accompanied the "colonial adventurer" Ernst Henrici to Germany, who was involved in private and government projects in Togo and had met Robert Garber during his trip through Africa.[13] It is possible that Henrici established contact between Garber and Kräusel and thus also made Joseph's trip to Germany possible. Henrici was a co-founder of the German Togo Society, which was only active for a short time, and which tried unsuccessfully to establish plantations on German territory; Kräusel was a member of the board of directors at the time. [14] In Berlin, Salomon was handed over to the care of the entrepreneur August Weinholtz and completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith. Samuel was trained as a shoemaker by Reinhold Esser, supplier to the Royal Court. The Berlin police chief became aware of Salomon's presence in the city and demanded written proof that he had not been forcibly brought to Germany or enslaved. The Foreign Office and the German authorities in Togo confirmed in Henrici's name that Salomon had not been kidnapped, but was present in the city for training purposes. Even Reich Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was informed of the case. On February 3, 1892, the 18-year-old Salomon died presumably of tuberculosis. [15] He was one of at least a dozen Africans who died of respiratory diseases in the German Reich. His funeral attracted many people and international press reports with it. [16] Samuel returned to Togo some time later after completing his apprenticeship with very good qualifications; even the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung reported that he could serve as a role model for his German contemporaries, many of whom he surpassed with his achievements. [17]
People on display: A return to Germany
In April 1896, Joseph and Samuel returned to Germany as part of the First German Colonial Exhibition. Their uncle Nayo Bruce and Samuel were responsible for recruiting Togolese participants. The exhibition, which was ultimately a "human zoo", was part of the trade exhibition in Berlin's Treptower Park. 106 people from German overseas colonial territories, including more than two dozen Togolese, were displayed in front of recreated indigenousvillages for the entertainment of the German audience. [18] They were supposed to demonstrate their considerable craftsmanship skills and present their supposed traditions and customs such as singing and dancing to exhibition visitors. Such "people's shows" were extremely popular with a European audience and one of the central possibilities for transnational mobility for Africans; they brought hundreds of men, women and children from different parts of Africa to Germany before 1914. [19]
Most of the participants in the "human zoos", and indeed most African people in general, spent only a few weeks, at most a few months, in Europe before returning to colonized Africa. However, at the end of the exhibition in Berlin in 1896, about 20 Africans asked for an extension of stay. [20] Many of them wanted to complete an apprenticeship in order to increase their chances of employment when they later returned to their home countries. In addition to Joseph, these were mainly men who eventually settled in Germany and became part of Berlin's Black community in the interwar period, such as the Cameroonians Anton M'Bonga Egiomue and Josef Boholle. Jobs were found for them mainly in the Berlin working-class areas such as today's Kreuzberg and Neukölln, usually not far from each other, which facilitated the consolidation of emerging relationships between them. Joseph learned the trade from the tailor Johannes Kullack in Kreuzberg. His development was commented on in 1897 in an article by the writer Paula Karsten, who in turn trained the Cameroonian Bernhard Epassi, who had also been part of the 1896 colonial exhibition. She described Joseph as a "talented young man" and was impressed by the fact that he already knew how to make a waistcoat, as well as his knowledge of English and German. [21] After completing his apprenticeship, Joseph informed the German authorities in 1905 that he preferred to stay in Germany and not return to Togo. [22] He had found a job as a tailor at the men's outfitting company Pohl & Schmidt and was financially independent. This may have been the reason why he was allowed to stay. Other former participants in the exhibition, such as Epassi, had long since been sent home due to alleged misconduct. [23] Among other things, Epassi was accused of associating with white women and fleeing from his violent employer.
Building a Life in Berlin: Marriage, Family and Legal Status
Another indication that Joseph intended to settle down was his marriage to the seamstress Johanna Maychrzak from Guben in April 1910.[24] So-called mixed marriages were de facto forbidden in the German overseas colonial territories for fear of so-called racialmixing, but no such prohibition existed in Germany itself. [25] Joseph was one of about a dozen men from the colonies, including Egiomue and Boholle, who married white partners and started a family in pre-war Germany. The Garbers' first child, son Deska, was born in 1909. Four more children followed: Käthe, also called Kitty (1912), Hans (1913), Magdalene (1917), who died in infancy, and another daughter, also called Magdalene (1919), but was called Leni by friends and family.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Joseph's employer was contracted to produce military jackets for the German Army, which provided him with a good income. When he was eventually drafted into military service and served in the Minden Field Regiment, he became one of several Black people serving in the German Army in Europe. [26] Others, such as Boholle, enlisted for service but were rejected; still others continued to work in industries that supported the war effort. [27]
At the end of the war, the few Africans from the German colonies who, like Joseph, were still in Germany, were confronted with a changed political situation: they had never been German citizens, but had a subordinate, vaguely defined legal status as German "protectors" with limited rights before the war. This unclear status was further complicated by the Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany was deprived of its overseas colonies. [28] With the transfer of the mandate of the colonial territories in Africa to Great Britain and France, Africans living in Germany from previously German colonies were placed under the diplomatic protection of the respective mandated power. In the case of Togo and much of Cameroon, this was France. In many ways, however, men like Joseph were essentially stateless – a status that their wives and German-born children inherited under German citizenship law. In addition, those Africans who had come to Germany before the war and had no intention of staying were now stuck there. It is therefore not surprising that some of Joseph's contemporaries, including Boholle, applied for naturalization. Boholle obtained German citizenship for himself and his family in 1928. He had achieved a certain degree of financial independence as a carpenter, and the local authorities granted his application. But he was an exception. [29]
Joseph's lack of legal status does not seem to have had a direct impact on his situation. In 1918, the family had moved into an apartment at Kaiser-Friedrich-Str. 74 (today's Sonnenallee), where they stayed for 30 years. At different times, several Africans, including from the former German colonies, lived nearby: such as Joseph Mambo from East Africa and Ambrosius de Souza from Togo. Black people often lived and worked close to each other in German cities, concentrated in a few areas, sometimes sharing apartments and thus being able to build close relationships with each other. This developed into formalized and informal social and political connections that formed the basis of the Black community. This began with the African Relief Association, founded in Hamburg in 1918, but developed into a Germany-wide network. [30] Partly as a political organization, partly as a self-help organization, the Hilfsverein and its spiritual successor organization, the League for the Defense of the N*** Race , stood up for the rights of the black population of Germany. Among other things, both groups provided practical and financial help to their members, including support in finding work and in official matters. It is unclear whether Joseph was as active in such organized political associations as some of his contemporaries.
Acting work as a survival strategy
With the money Joseph had earned during the war, he opened his own men's outfitting business next to the family's apartment. However, the business closed around 1930, possibly as a result of the worsening economic crisis. It is not clear whether the crisis affected family life, but after more than twenty years of marriage, Johanna and Joseph divorced in 1931 and Joseph moved out of the family home. Johanna died in November 1934 at the age of 46. [31]
Throughout the 1920s, most Black people faced limited employment opportunities. They turned to performing work on stage, screen, or in the circus to earn a living. [32] Usually, these were roles that served stereotypes of "blacks" as "primitive" or "exotic" objects. In the late 1920s, Joseph also began to supplement his income through acting activities. He had small roles in films and appeared as a member of the Bahadi Ezzat troupe . The troupe was led by Egyptians Fahmy Ezzat and Hassan Bahadi and was one of those groups that combined elements of pre-war human zoo exhibits and circus-like entertainment. More than a dozen performers performed with her, including East African Hedwig Nyassa and Cameroonians Victor Bell and Boholle, as well as Boholle's Berlin-born daughter Josefa. [33] The Garbers' older children – Deska, Hans and Kitty – also appeared in the group; in the 1930s, all four siblings toured much of Western Europe, mostly with a group called Mohamed's Africa Show , which sometimes performed as part of the larger Sarrasani Circus. [34]
Working in such shows could be a grueling, exploitative, and unpleasant experience. [35] Leni took care of the animals that appeared in the shows – this included feeding a boa constrictor, lions, and tigers. This task gave her some comfort in this difficult context. [36] But acting also brought many Black people closer together and strengthened their sense of community among themselves. [37] The children born in Germany, who often grew up together in this environment, also became friends. This was true at least for the Garber siblings, who were closely connected to the children of Boholle, Anton Egiomue, Theophilius Wonja Michael, and others. Leni Garber and Ejanga Egiomue, daughter of Anton and his wife Lona Müller, remained friends for the rest of their lives. [38] But new connections were also formed. While the Garbers were on tour, they met the Black Berliner Gerda Seefeldt, with whom they also remained friends for the rest of their lives.
Survival in Nazi Germany
After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, the Black population of Germany was increasingly confronted with social, political, and economic marginalization. [39] Laws passed at the national level that were primarily directed against Jews and/or "foreign-raced" persons were generally applied to them. Locally, they were increasingly exposed to verbal and physical assaults. The regime's attempts to control cultural life in Germany made it difficult for Black performers to find work. From 1936, the Garber siblings were part of the German Africa Show, which consisted of about two dozen Black people, including Boholle and his adult children, as a part variety and part ethnographic show. [40] Together with Sam Dibonge, whose father had come from Cameroon, the Garbers founded the acrobatic troupe Five Bosambo's. Although the show was originally intended to help Black people earn an income, it was now increasingly used by the Nazis to give expression to the revanchist colonial claim to Africa. Performers were expected to embody exotic and racialized stereotypes to underpin notions of German or "Aryan" superiority.
During the 1930s, the family's unclear citizenship status now had a greater impact on their lives. For example, the Garber children had problems when they were hired for acting work in Sweden in 1938/39, like several Black Berlin residents, such as the Egiomue family. [41] The Berlin police considered them stateless and refused to allow them to leave the country. The siblings turned to French authorities, under whose mandate Togo was, to obtain the documents required for the trip. However, they only complied with the request on the condition that they return to Germany at the end of the tour.
Joseph had major problems due to his lack of citizenship. He was arrested and prosecuted several times for this; three times for "unauthorized residence in the territory of the Reich" and once because he did not have valid papers. [42] Due to such convictions, he was considered a repeat offender, which was a dangerous status at the time of the Nazi dictatorship. In March 1942, he was arrested again. This time he was accused of deprivation of maintenance. The city's welfare and youth welfare office reported that he had to make monthly maintenance payments for his children. This also indicates the family's difficulties in making a living. Legally, Joseph continued to bear financial responsibility for his children, at least until they were able to take full care of themselves; however, new requirements severely restricted the work opportunities of Black people. The German Africa Show was discontinued in 1940, and in 1941 Black actors were officially banned from performing in public. [43] Even though the Nazis employed dozens of Black actors in colonial propaganda films in the early 1940s, this brought little financial relief. That Joseph was also struggling financially is made clear by the fact that he appeared in the film Quax in Africa (1947, but shot 1943–1944) together with his daughter Leni and many Black residents. Joseph's conviction for child support in 1942 coincided with the parenthood of his two sons. This may have led to social welfare offices becoming aware of the family and actually forcing Joseph to provide financial support. It is unclear whether Deska and Hans had to face consequences due to their relationships with white partners.
Nazi violence against Black residents escalated after the outbreak of World War II. Black men and women born in Germany were particularly at risk of sterilization and imprisonment. [44] This was especially true for people who were in a relationship with so-called Aryans. "Mixed marriages" had been banned by the Nuremberg Laws and the control bodies actively tried to end relationships.
Josefa Boholle and her Dutch husband were imprisoned in the Stutthof concentration camp – partly because of their marriage – while Ejanga Egiomue, like many Black people, escaped Nazi terror with her Danish partner. [45] Little is known about the experiences of the Garber siblings during the last years of the Nazi regime, but all four survived. Leni was in Berlin when the city was bombed, and several photos suggest that she may have helped care for injured soldiers. [46] Joseph's life also remains unclear. He was arrested again in April 1944. [47] This time, he was sentenced to three months in prison. He, too, survived the Nazi regime.
Endings and new beginnings
Joseph Garber died on October 27, 1950 at the age of 71 in West Berlin. [48] His life and that of his children, like that of most of his contemporaries, were always shaped by the fact that he came from an area that had claimed Germany as a colony. This influenced their legal status, their opportunities to marry and start a family, as well as their job opportunities. He and other Black people, their wives and children born in Germany were subjected to the violence and almost limitless arbitrariness of the National Socialists from 1933 onwards. It also haunted their lives in the post-war period. Joseph ultimately remained stateless throughout his life. Like some of their Black German contemporaries, the Garber siblings tried to build a new life for themselves outside of Germany. [49] After 1945, they were free of restrictions imposed by the Nazis on "mixed marriages"; Deska and Hans married their partners, with whom they had been together for years. They went to France with their young families. Both obtained French citizenship for themselves and their families. For the first time in their lives, they had full rights as citizens. [50] Kitty also moved to France and lived near her brothers. She died around 1971/72, Hans died in 1975 and Deska three years later.
In 1946, Leni, now known as Madeleine, married an African-American GI who had fought for the U.S. armed forces against the Nazis. In 1947, their daughter was born, and shortly thereafter, the young family moved to the United States. In 1954, Madeleine officially became a U.S. citizen, by which time she had already given birth to a second daughter. While Madeleine and her husband eventually separated, she married her new partner in 1958. Despite the physical distance, the Garbers' strong family ties remained. Madeleine corresponded regularly with her brothers, visiting them at least twice in France. The family's ties to friends and neighbors in Berlin-Neukölln also remained. Deska returned to his hometown of Berlin several times, and on one of these occasions a reunion with Madeleine took place. [51] She regularly wrote letters to her friends in Berlin, including several Black Berliners with whom she had grown up in Germany in the interwar period, such as Gerda and Ejanga. Madeleine died on December 13, 2013, at the age of 94; at that time, she had five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
For many Black German families, like the Garbers, Berlin was a spatial starting point for migration; one with which they remained connected long after their departure. But ultimately, in transnational family biographies shaped by German colonialism and its afterlife, the city was only one of many stations of transnational family life.
Prof. Dr. Robbie Aitken: Transnational Ways of Life. In: Kolonialismus begegnen. Decentralised Perspectives on Berlin's Urban History. URL: https://kolonialismus-begegnen.de/geschichten/transnationale-lebensweisen/ (04.09.2025).
Literature & Sources
[1] Examples can be found in Maraun, Frank, "Am N****stammtisch in Berlin", in: Gelsenkirchner Allgemeine Zeitung: 3rd sheet, 19.11.1929; Erig, Walter, "Berlins schwarze Kolonie und schwarzes Theater" in: Altonaer Nachrichten: 1st supplement, 1.2.1930, p. 5; "Der schwarze Steuerfolger als Mokkabrauer", in: Saale-Zeitung, 17.4.1930, p. 4.
[2] For more information on the League, see Aitken, Robbie, "From Cameroon to Germany and Back via Moscow and Paris: The Political Career of Joseph Bilé (1892–1959), Performer, "N****arbeiter" and Comintern activist", in: Journal of Contemporary History 43 (2008), pp. 597–616.
[4] Aitken, Robbie, "A Transient Presence: Black Visitors and Sojourners in Imperial Germany, 1884–1914", in: Immigrants and Minorities, 34/3 (2016), pp. 233–255.
[5] Seebald, Peter, "The German Colony of Togo 1884–1914: Effects of Foreign Domination", Berlin, 2013, p. 26.
[7] "Kleine Chronik: Fünf junge N****", in: Herforder Kreisblatt, 18.12.1890, p. 3. The young people were registered upon their arrival at the Hotel Union in Hamburg. "Officielle Hamburg-Altonaer Fremden-Listenen-Listen: Hotel Union", in: Hamburger Fremdenblatt, 19.12.1890, p. 8.
[8] "Lokales", in: Kölner Nachrichten, 30.4.1891, p. 2.
[10] Letter from the Imperial Commissioner for Togo to the Imperial Chancellor Caprivi, 21 December 1893, Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArch) R1001 5572, p. 82.
[11] Aitken, Robbie and Rosenhaft, Eve, Black Germany: The Making and Unmaking of a Diaspora Community, 1884–1960, Cambridge 2013, see the case of Alfred Bell pp. 20–30, also pp. 60–63.
[12] Hamburg State Archives 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Volume 091; p. 1073.
[13] "Deutschland: Der Afrikaforscher", Bonner Zeitung, 25.11.1888, p. 1.
[14] Documents on the German Togo Society and Salomon's journey to Germany can be found in the Federal Archives Berlin (BArch), R150 577.
[16] For example, "Where the Black Man is Brother," New York Times, March 4, 1892, p. 5.
[17] Untitled, Report on Garber, in: 1 supplement of the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, 13.4.1892.
[18] On the exhibition, see Zimmerman, Andrew, Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany, Chicago 2001, pp. 24–35.
[19] Gouaffo, Albert, "Prince Dido of Didotown and 'Human Zoos' in Wilhelmine Germany: Strategies for Self-Representation under the Othering Gaze", in: Rosenhaft, Eve and Aitken, Robbie (eds.), Africa in Europe. Studies in Transnational Practice in the Long Twentieth Century, Liverpool 2013, pp. 19–33, here p. 19.
[20] Aitken and Rosenhaft, Black Germany, pp. 56–60.
[21] Karsten, Paula, "Kamerun in Berlin und deutsche Briefe von Kamerun", in: Globus: Illustrierte Zeitschrift für Länder- und Völkerkunde 6/72 (1897): pp. 97–99, here p. 97.
[22] Letter from Joseph Garber to the colonial authority of the Foreign Office, 29.12.1905, in: BArch R1001 6350, pp. 95–96.
[23] Bowersox, Jeff, "Kolonial-Lehrling wider Willen. Bernhard Epassi in Deutschland 1896–1901", in: Van der Heyden, Ulrich (ed.), Unbekannte Biographien: Afrikaner im deutschsprachigen Raum vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Berlin 2008, pp. 103–117, here pp. 114–117.
[24] Marriage certificate, marriage register of the Berlin registry offices 1874 – 1936, Rixdorf III 1910, Landesarchiv Berlin (LAB), reproduction via Ancestry.com. Last accessed: 15.7.2024.
[25] On the prohibition of marriage, see Wildenthal, Lora, German Women for Empire, 1884–1945, Durham, NC, 2001.
[27] On Boholle, Report of the Chief of Police, 13.9.1927, LAB A Pr Br Rep 030-06, No. 6473, p. 21.
[28] See Frey, Laura and Aitken, Robbie, ''Appartenances coloniales' Les répercussions du traité de Versailles sur le statut juridique des Allemands noirs et de leurs familles entre les deux guerres', in: Revue d'Allemagne et des pays de langue allemande, 52/2 (2020), pp. 365–380.
[29] Boholle's nationality application can be found at LAB, A Pr Br Rep 030-06, No. 6473.
[30] On the African welfare organization, see Frey and Aitken, "'Appartenances coloniales'", pp. 372–373.
[31] Death certificate, death register of the Berlin registry offices 1874–1986, Buckow II 1934, LAB, reproduction via Ancestry.com. Last accessed: 15.7.2024.
[32] Aitken and Rosenhaft, Black Germany, pp. 145–154.
[33] An advertising postcard of the group from the mid-1920s shows Joseph and his three eldest children with Josef and Josefa Boholle, Victor Bell and Hedwig Nyassa, among others. Private collection of the author.
[34] See the photographs from the early 1930s in Album 1 of Magdalena Garber's private collection. I am indebted to Jackie White for access to her mother's collection.
[35] See the comments by Theodor Michael. Michael, Theodor, Being German and Black on This: Memories of an Afro-German, dtv, 2013), pp. 28–34.
[36] Email correspondence with Jackie White, Magdalena's daughter, July 10, 2019 and July 12, 2019.
[37] Aitken and Rosenhaft, Black Germany, pp. 152–154.
[38] Leni and Ejanga, as well as Leni and Gerda, wrote to each other regularly until the mid-1990s. I am very grateful to Leni's daughter, Jackie White, for giving me access to this private correspondence.
[39] See Aitken and Rosenhaft, Black Germany, pp. 231–278.
[40] On the Africa show, see Lewerenz, Susann, Die Deutsche Afrika-Schau (1935–1940): Rassismus, Kolonialrevisionismus und postkoloniale Streitungen im nationalsozialistische Deutschland, Peter Lang, 2006.
[41] French Consulate, Berlin to the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs, 4.4.1938; Imperial Commissioner in Togo to the Minister of the Colonies, 23.5.1938, Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence FM AP 614/2.
[43] "Announcement", in: Artistenwelt, No. 7 April 1941, p. 17. See also Aitken and Rosenhaft, Black Germany, pp. 256–258.
[44] See Aitken, Robbie, "Denied a Certificate of Fitness to Marry: The Nuremberg Race Laws as a Threat to Black German Futures", in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1/39 (2025), pp. 40–56.
[45] On Josefa, see, Magistrat der Stadt Berlin, Abteilung für Sozialwesen, Hauptausschuss "Opfer des Faschismus": Questionnaire: Josefa van der Want, 27 November 1945; Curriculum vitae of Josefa van der Want, 2.1.1946, letter from Cornelis van der Want to the Office for Restitution, Düren, 24.2.1950, in Staatsarchiv Hamburg 351-11 42010, pp. 6, 7, 30–31. On Ejanga, see file in the National Archives of Denmark, 1353/5 Rigspolitichefen Tilsynet med Udlændinge, 111787.
[46] See the photographs in Album 5, p. 22, private collection of Magdalena Garber.
[47] Foreign criminal record, 24.10.1944, LAB A Rep. 341-02 No.11649, p. 2.
[48] Death certificate, death register of the Berlin registry offices 1874–1986 Neukölln 1950, LAB, reproduction via Ancestry.com. Last accessed: 15.7.2024.
[49] The following section is largely based on information from the private archive of Magdalena Garber's family.
[50] The naturalization certificates of both brothers and their families can be viewed on MyHeritage.com. Deska was naturalized in 1962 and Hans in 1956. Last accessed: 16.7.2024.
[51] Letter from Hans and Deska Garber to Madeleine Garber, 14.3.1972, private collection of Jackie White.